An Alaska pension fund sues banks over rate manipulation allegations

NEW YORK, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Thirteen of the world's biggest
banks have been accused by an Alaska pension fund of breaking
U.S. antitrust and commodities laws by rigging an interest rate
benchmark used to price many financial instruments in the $710
trillion derivatives market.

In a complaint filed on Thursday in U.S. District Court in
Manhattan, the Alaska Electrical Pension Fund said the banks ran
a "secret conspiracy" to set the "ISDAfix" rate at artificial
levels from 2009 to 2012, causing billions of dollars of
investor losses.

Also named as a defendant was ICAP Plc, a British
brokerage that in January lost its role as the administrator of
U.S. dollar ISDAfix rates in the wake of U.S. and U.K. probes.

The banks either declined to comment or did not immediately
respond to requests for comment. ICAP declined to comment,
saying it had yet to be served with the complaint.

ISDAfix is used by companies and investors to price a
variety of swaps transactions, commercial real estate mortgages
and structured debt securities.

According to the complaint, the defendants rigged ISDAfix by
executing rapid trades just before the rate was set, known as
"banging the close"; causing ICAP to delay processing trades
until the banks moved the rate where they wanted; and arranging
for ICAP to post a rate that didn't reflect market activity.

As a result of such activity, the defendants would submit
"the same or virtually the same USD ISDAfix rate quotes on
almost every single day, down to five decimal points," the
complaint said.

The odds were "astronomical" against this occurring by
chance, and only when the probes began did the similar rate
submissions stop, the lawsuit said.

Goldman, HSBC, Nomura, RBS and Wells Fargo by last September
no longer had roles in setting ISDAfix, the complaint said.

The lawsuit was filed less than four hours after U.S.
District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan allowed other investors
to pursue a lawsuit accusing 12 banks, most of which were also
sued over ISDAfix, of fixing prices in the roughly $21 trillion
credit default swaps market.

The case is Alaska Electrical Pension Fund v. Bank of
America Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of
New York, No. 14-07126.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Grant
McCool)